Topic: Writing, Revising, and Proofreading

Evan Thomas, former editor at large for Newsweek, shares strategies for student writers to improve their writing. In this units video clip (access video 4), Thomas shares his experience with the editing portion of writing, revising, and proofreading.

(The video transcript is below)

Respond with analysis and critical thinking in no fewer than 300 words using conventional English.

Respond to Thomass observations, as a peer reviewer, and your own work on your research proposal rough draft.

Video Transcript:

EVAN THOMAS (former Editor of Newsweek): Often when you write something and you turn it in to your boss or your editor, they're going to come back and say you know this isn't all that great, you got to take another crack at it. That's incredibly painful. I cannot tell you how many times in my own professional career that's happened to me and every time it does it feels like getting a bruised punch. It's just painful. But it goes with the territory and it's usually not meant maliciously. Yeah we can all have malicious bosses, but usually it means you've got to work on it. When an editor tells you that something is wrong it means that something is wrong. The editor may not know exactly how to fix it. Usually it's up to you to fix it, but you do have to fix it. You just can't take it too personally. It's natural to take it personally. I always do when I get edited and believe me, I still get edited after many years of doing this. It always hurts a little bit, but you just have to suck it up and understand that it's going to -- in the end it's good for you. It's going to make you look good. Good editors make writers look good. A word about deadlines, all writers have them. In journalism we certainly do, obviously at a weekly magazine every, every week. In business you will always have deadlines. Everybody's got them. Now here's the thing about deadlines. They're serious. You cannot break deadlines. You can't do it at [a magazine or Journal] and you can't do it out there in the real world. You actually have to stick to deadlines. Deadlines are deadlines. The tendency is to procrastinate, is to waste a lot of time and to leave no time to do what you have to do. Don't do that. Write building in enough time so you have time to rewrite, because almost all writing requires rewriting. It's not -- you can't wait till the last minute, whip it off and think okay I'm done. You must build in time to rewrite, even if it's just a night. Often it takes a night to figure out whether what you've written is any good or not, and you need that you need to be able to sleep on it and look at it the next morning and ask yourself did I get it right. So if you possibly can build in there at least one night of sleep in the writing process. When you've finished a piece, a story, a memo, or a speech, it is essential that you proofread. It is just absolutely essential. People don't like sloppiness. It's a sign that you just dont care. And if they're full of grammatical mistakes or typos or misspellings it's offensive to the reader and if the reader is your boss it's not going to help your career. So make sure that you use spell-check, but don't just trust spell-check. You know, use the dictionary. Make sure that you carefully proofread. It's important and I'll tell you one way to do it is to read aloud. Often things that you won't see when you're reading just silently will pop out at you. There's something about reading aloud that has the affect that's sort of like x-rays of exposing mistakes and typos, and sometimes big mistakes that you just didn't catch when you were reading. So when you've finished, read aloud for little things, and also for big things and for the cadence and the feel of it. It'll give you a better feel for what you've just written. A final word about revising and rewriting, often it's the most enjoyable part of writing. I know that sounds counter intuitive. You've just written something. You're sick of it. You want to be done with it. You don't want to rewrite it. I often hear students groan when I teach writing. I hear them groan, oh I don't want to rewrite. But what they discover often is that rewriting is the most pleasurable part of writing. It's actually fun because the miserable part of writing is starting when you're all confused and you're not sure what you're saying. Once you have something on paper, you're polishing it, and you're making it better it's like seeing a puzzle come together and it can actually give you a feeling of satisfaction, reward, and even fun. So remember, writing starts badly, but it can often end well, especially if you take pride in what you've done. Now if you need help, if you need refreshers there are a couple of books that are particularly useful I think that have helped me. One is William Zinzer's, On Writing Well. Another sort of the granddaddy of them all the, the bible for so many writers is, E. B. White's Elements of Style. These are valuable books to have. They have interesting essays in them and also little pointers that can help you get through the challenge of writing.